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Blue Devils to celebrate milestones
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Published: October 16, 2009
DURHAM
Another basketball season at Duke will begin today, but this one will start with considerably more celebration and glitz than any of its predecessors.
The first day of practice under NCAA rules will be Duke's Countdown to Craziness, a day open to the public to view many of the program's inner workings. A team scrimmage tonight will highlight the festivities, which will also include a dunk contest and an outside concert.
The celebration will help honor the 70th season in Cameron Indoor Stadium and the 30th season for Coach Mike Krzyzewski. Duke's venerable home arena has a new inside look, with all its 9,314 seats now painted dark blue.
Krzyzewski said that the celebration and changes are designed to create more spontaneity in Cameron and around the Duke program, one of college basketball's most successful in the last 25 years.
"We'll see how this goes and see if we want to do something like it again," Krzyzewski said. "We're just adapting to a different culture and some of the things students have asked us to do. It's a combination of things."
Some change will extend to Krzyzewski's team. He believes that the ACC will be strong again, and is confident that Duke will be among its best teams after reaching the NCAA Tournament's regional semifinals last season and finishing 30-7.
Krzyzewski said he is hoping for practice to go smoother, with fewer setbacks and slow days because of health issues. All of Duke's recruited players are healthy. The only player who is hurt is Jordan Davidson, a reserve walk-on who had summer back surgery.
"That's huge," Krzyzewski said of his team's health. "You're going to see improvement because these guys will work. They haven't been rehabilitating. They've been working on their games."
One of the tallest Duke teams ever could take the floor in the season opener if the lineup that Krzyzewski has in mind stays intact. Jon Scheyer (6-5) and Nolan Smith (6-2) would form the backcourt. Kyle Singler, Miles Plumlee and Mason Plumlee would be the frontcourt. Singler is 6-8. The Plumlee brothers are both 6-10. Krzyzewski said that Lance Thomas, 6-8, could also start some games, and Brian Zoubek, a 7-1 center, could come off the bench. Ryan Kelly, a 6-10 freshman, will also be available off the bench.
"We can be the best rebounding team I've had," Krzyzewski said.
Big lineups could come at a cost, however. Duke's pressure defense has always been among the best in college basketball, but tall players might not have the quickness to defend the entire court against smaller players.
"It does have an impact on our defense," Krzyzewski said. "Length (height) is really good, but you have to be careful that you don't spread length out too much to where you lose the advantage of having length.
"So we just have to come up with a few ways of dictating tempo when it's needed with the people that we have. It will be different from how we've dictated tempo in the past from defense. You just can't dictate tempo with offense. You have to dictate tempo with defense."
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